The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1887-10-11
THE RIGHT STAND.

Rev. J. P. Newman, of Washing
ton, is reported as follows in his SER
mon last Sunday, when he was cheered
by his congregation:
The cry goes up to-day for absolute
liberty. Destroy the Bible, tesr down the
churches, exile the pastors, abolish the Sab
bath. Could any American citizen have
anticipated ten years ago such an advance?
Would any American citizen ten years ago
have foretold that to-day men calling
themselves good citizens and Christians
would sign and circulate petition for the
pardon of those whose hands are red with
the blood of the keepers OF the peace and
defenders of the public safety? What is
back of this anarchy? This foul revolu-
tionary movement OF miserable, cowardly
wretcheS who ought to have been hung
long ago? Liberty means obedience TO
law, absolute liberty has no place in this
land, and he who comes to US from abroad
should understand that for those who yell
for absolute liberty and Its practices We
have the dungeon, the gallows, or exile.
Commenting on the above, the Kan
sas City Times of Friday says:
This is all very well as far it goes, but it
has merely skinned the surface of the
evil which afilicts the country. Who pities
tho dynamiters of Chicago? Who is
lifting a hand to save them from the rope
except those who are but little better than
they? DR.. Newman need not have bella
bored these straw men so furiously. They
are the mere outg rcwth of poison that
lies deeper. That has been at work for
thrice ten years. That is as difficult TO
eradicate as leprosy. That the pulpit has
had as much TO do in making deadly as a
morass has in bree ding malaria. That is
becoming more intense every day, more
estructiye and more imperyious to medi-
cament-we mean the pOston Of infidelity.
1t further says that 1.-THE gravita
ton toward religion that has neither
a Bible nor Savior has been going
on steadily in the United States for
thirty years. 1t began when the
preachers began TO preach politics
from the pulpits. 1t began wnen the
New Testament was prostituted by the
elimination of an actual devil and
real hell. 1t began when reign of
sensationalism set in, and when texts
not taken from the Holy Scriptures,
but from the most abnormal events
of everyday society, the more fashion
able the better and the more given
over to worldliness and display"
The Times then follows with a lot
of gush about preaching sermons on
horse races, on base ball, on Grant,
and G uiteau, and Garfield, and Jesse
James, and score of other subjects,
and abuses DR.. Newman for, as it
says, preaching more politics to the
square inch of brain than any other
preacher in the country"
All this may be true of DIR. New
man, but for all the sins thus charged
against him, he should be forgiven
for his expression quoted above. He
had the courage of his convictions |;
he had manliness enough to stand in
his pulpit, on Sunday, and denounce
the men whose execution the anarch-
lists, and socialists, and infdels try to
make the signal for general revolt
against the established laws of free
and enlightened people. The Times
may rave at his hypocrisy, and try to
belittle him because of some former
acts, but the great mass of Americans
are with him and will stay with him,
even if he does "make the pulpit
place for man canonizatiOn.